


Turn Then, Most Gracious Advocate, Your Eyes of Mercy Toward Us

by Aurumite



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
Genre: I'm sure y'all already know what other warning tags are involved if you're reading fe4 fic, Injury, Other, Pre-Relationship, Religion, Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 20:39:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14410137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurumite/pseuds/Aurumite
Summary: When Finn left Leonster, he took nothing but his war gear and his diptych.





	Turn Then, Most Gracious Advocate, Your Eyes of Mercy Toward Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MarkoftheAsphodel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarkoftheAsphodel/gifts).



> An exploration of Jugdrali faith via Finn/Lach for Mark! Finn's the "pious" knight for a reason.

"Stay with me, Finn." 

He'd edged out of consciousness but snaps back at the command. He must obey. 

The voice is divine. 

His vision's hazy but he manages to focus on the dark eyes so intent on him, the firm touch on one shoulder and one side of his face, shaking him slightly. It's almost enough to make him forget the pain radiating up his spine, or the gut-clenching slosh of where his blood is gathering. 

"Finn," Quan says again. "Keep your eyes open." 

He must obey. His gaze locks on his master's and for just a minute, he manages. 

Then Quan's head shoots up as he shouts for Ethlyn, and the command is gone, and so is Finn. 

***

When Finn left Leonster, he took nothing but his war gear and his diptych. 

He's had the latter as long as he can remember: a gift from his parents before they passed, though he can't remember receiving it. 

It's beautiful agarwood from the lign aloes so common in his kingdom. On one side is an image of Nova's likeness, haloed and detailed by real gold paint. The other side is plain but hollow, filled with blessed soil. You can hear it rustle if you shake it a little. Finn never has been able to figure out how the carver got the soil inside and then sealed the wood so smoothly.

It folds like a book and is small enough to fit in any pocket, so that's where Finn has kept it, and still keeps it. It's always on his person. 

He reaches for it the second he wakes and gasps to find it gone. 

"Here," says a soft, melodic voice, and Lady Edain presses it into his hands just in time for the pain to hit him. He clutches it so hard that the edges dig into his palms. The lantern light is very faint and lines Edain's golden waves with orange.

"We had to wash and change you," she explains, "and I found it. It's quite beautiful. We don't carry those in the Church of Edda." 

Finn has no time for pleasantries. "Lord Quan?" 

"Alive and well, but very worried for you. Please lie back, Finn." 

He listens.

"We were quite sure you would not make it," Edain murmurs. "Lady Ethlyn and I. We worked on you all night, until I had to send her off before she made herself ill. It must be a miracle." 

Finn shakes his head. Miracles are for Crusaders and true heroes and times of deepest darkness. He's just a squire who remembers to say his prayers every sunrise and sunset, and who carries a diptych. There are dozens like him back in Leonster.

Time is sluggish in the healer's tent, but Edain sits and talks with him to help him pass the hours until morning. He learns she once had a twin sister, who was kidnapped by pirates while her family was on a pilgrimage. Finn wonders what god would allow such a thing.

"My condolences," he says, but Edain shakes her head. 

"She is still alive. I have every faith in that. For a while I was devastated, but now I believe that we were separated for a reason." 

Finn wants to ask more but grey light is starting to seep through the flaps of the tent, and Quan and Ethlyn hurry in with barely a breath of Edain's permission. 

"Thank you, Edain," Ethlyn says. If she's slept for a couple of hours, she doesn't look it. 

Quan pulls Finn's fingers open and seems surprised to find the diptych. 

"You carry one of these old things?" he asks, laugh tinged with something almost like hysteria, and puts it aside to take Finn's hand in his own. Ethlyn pushes Finn's hair out of his face.

Despite the pain, Finn has never felt so blessed.

***

When Brigid appears at the end of things, eyes alight and figure lined with the fire of a burning ship behind her, Finn well and truly knows he's seen a goddess.

Now,  _ Lachesis  _ \-- she's never been anything of the sort, though she shone just as golden when he met her a year before. She is a princess, and  _ worldly _ . She's healthy hair that tangles though she's constantly brushing it out, blood rushing into cheeks, a sharp tongue against the roof of a mouth. Lachesis is nothing and no one but Lachesis. 

For the first few days of their acquaintanceship, her friendship seems unlikely. Finn thinks she's simply settling next to Ethlyn since Lord Quan and Lord Eldigan are good friends, and now Ethlyn is part of Quan, and Finn is nobody at all. But when he considers it far later in life: if Edain could fall weeping into Brigid's arms, and Lord Sigurd could drink and laugh with his common-blooded knights, it is not particularly strange that a princess becomes Finn's closest companion. They're close in age, and her vivaciousness with a sword makes her an interesting sparring partner. She says what she likes, when she likes, which is sometimes helpful when Finn doesn't know what to say at all.

She is not his creator. She is not his pantheon. She is not his patron. She is close enough to touch, and when she worries for her brother Eldigan, she does exactly that: takes Finn's hand and squeezes hard. 

***

A package arrives. Lord Sigurd cries out and Lord Quan curses when they open the box.

Finn can't sleep that night. In the next tent over he hears Quan weeping into Ethlyn's shoulder about how much hair was severed with Eldigan's neck.  _ He had always been so proud of it _ . 

It's not his place, he knows, but he goes to Lachesis. The night is cool and unnaturally still. Her tent is dark. Finn calls for her, quietly, but there is no answer. 

He reaches for his diptych, faces what he hopes is Manster, and prays that the silence is absence.  

***

Trials happen in the desert. 

Everyone knows that. The Twelve Crusaders were in the desert, huddled and desperate, wounded and starving, when the gods appeared to them at Darna. 

Finn always imagined deserts to be hot and rocky, until he sees autumn in Silesia. The land is full of evergreens, but everything else bursts into flaming reds and oranges and dies within a fortnight. Everything feels barren to someone accustomed to Manster's mild winters and the flourish of life in all seasons. There is almost no vegetation left alive; the people live on meat and cheese. The icy air stings his lungs, makes his eyes water and then freezes his eyelashes.

Finn's prayer was answered but Lachesis lives as if comatose. Noble Lord Sigurd is exiled, branded a traitor to his nation, and his lady wife is kidnapped, and there is conflict brewing in Silesia too. Grief is deeply lined into every face he passes.

He finds Lachesis on the ramparts one morning as he comes to watch the sunrise and pace through his morning prayers. She's shivering through her gown, wearing no cloak, and Finn sees goosebumps on her neck as he takes off his own and drapes it over her shoulders with her long golden hair. 

"Aren't you cold?" 

"No." 

She doesn't even look at him. Her eyes -- brown, but lighter than Quan's -- stare off at nothing in particular.

"Are you praying? I can leave." 

She exhales sharply. He'd call it a snort if it were a more regal word. 

"Pray for what? To  _ whom? _ "

That seems obvious to Finn, though the little he knows of the Church of Edda comes from Ethlyn. There are countless gods in the wind and water and soil that she could call on for strength. He tells her so and she only shrugs one shoulder. 

"All my life, I've only prayed to Hezul. And now he's gone from the world."

"Prince Ares carries major holy blood, doesn't he?" 

Finn's only trying to be reassuring: Hezul's line isn't gone at all. But Lachesis finally turns her head, and the look she fixes him with makes his stomach hurt. She looks a long time and he does his best not to flinch.

"I don't even know where Ares is," she says finally. 

Finn is out of words. He's trying to muster some when a voice calls for Lachesis and her mercenary -- Beowulf -- appears at the top of the staircase. Lachesis looks out over the barren land again. 

"Not now," she says. "I'm praying." 

Beowulf leaves without a word and Finn follows without a goodbye, confused. He doesn't ask for his cloak back. 

***

Lachesis brings it to Lord Quan's suite later, neatly folded, but she's not there for Finn. 

"You have help me, Quan," she insists. The sound of his name, pure and unadorned, almost makes Finn start. "I daren't ask Sigurd now and I'm good enough with a sword as it is. But if I'm to help take back Grannvale and return to Agustria, I need to be better. No one can best you with a lance. Won't you teach me?" 

Quan is at the room's desk, sifting through missives he plans to send. There are chairs across the room, by the window, but that felt so far that Finn sat on the ground at Quan's feet, back leaning against the side of the desk as he polished the lance Quan had given him before the tragedy. He hears Quan sigh. 

"Lachesis, I don't have time. Sigurd and I need to think up a strategic path back into Grannvale, and that's hard enough with all this." He gestures to the weak light of the far window: to the wintry desert and its turmoil. Ethlyn is gone helping Queen Rahna run the household while Rahna makes contingency plans. "And I have plenty to delegate back in Leonster."

"Then what else am I to do?" Lachesis demands. 

"Finn will help you." 

Quan says it so easily that this time Finn really does start. Lachesis's eyes lower as if noticing him for the first time.  

"Me?" he says, at the same time Lachesis tilts her chin up and asks, "Him?" 

"Finn is more than skilled enough. He'll be promoted when we return." 

Finn's eyes shoot up just in time for calloused fingers to touch his head. 

"Surprise," says Quan, grinning. "Ethlyn and I were going to wait to tell you, but if Lachesis needs your rank, here it is." 

"My lord..." 

Finn twists to his knees, unsure how best to thank him, but Lachesis interrupts before he can. 

"Well?" 

She's looking at him, arms folded, and suddenly Finn's not sure which one he's kneeling to. But the words come, polite and practiced:

"If Lord Quan wills it, I will be happy to help you, Princess Lachesis." 

"Bring that, then." She nods to the spear he has braced on the floor. "I'd like to start immediately." 

She turns and leaves, and Finn stares after her. Quan's touch of benediction becomes a light flick to the back of his head. 

"Go on, then, Finn." 

As always, he obeys.

***

For the next few weeks, every spare moment Finn has is with Lachesis, down on the training grounds until they drill the cold out of their bones. 

She learns quickly. She's opportunistic. Eventually she knocks him off-balance, and as he drags her down with him by the shaft of her spear, he realizes he might actually lose this one. 

They grapple on the ground, quarters too tight to get in a real strike, and they're both breathless by the time Lachesis finally pins him. Her body doesn't weigh enough but the shaft of her weapon crossing his throat and bearing down, a single prison bar, is enough to keep him in place. A little more pressure will bruise him badly. 

It's hard to even catch his breath, so all he does is stare up. Lachesis's smile is fierce and her chest is heaving. The cold air feels good, for once, against the sweat trickling from his hairline. 

"How does it feel to lose to a student?" she asks. 

"You feel--" 

He cuts himself off, realizing that wasn't her question. But there's so much of her against so much of him and it's all he can focus on.

For a second he thinks she'll kiss him. She's close enough to. It might be pleasant against the painful pressure of her spear across his neck. It's always pleasant when Lord Quan pats his shoulder after he's done well at training, forearms striped with swelling red lines.

Lachesis's lips meet his forehead and she rolls off him. 

"I know. Thank you, Finn." 

Finn sucks breath into his starving lungs and stares at the sky.    

***

One morning she comes to the practice field in skirts instead of breeches, and brings no weapon. Finn doesn't ask until she's standing with him in the center of the packed, frozen dirt. They're so far from the pine fencing that even the wind can't carry her voice, which is unusually small. 

"I'm with child." 

He's too shocked to even respond, for a moment, and then the back of his neck heats. (Because it's a scandal, he tells himself, and not because he's jealous.) 

"Are you sure?" 

"It's the second time I've missed my cycle." 

And they've been in Silesia just under two months. Finn shifts his weight and Lachesis folds her arms.

"Who?" he asks.

"Beowulf."

The silence between them is awkward, incredulous. Pink spots rise in her cheeks. 

"Fleeing Agustria was unbearable. I needed to feel something--anything--else. I don't care what you think of me." 

_ So why tell me? _ Finn wants to demand, but he holds his tongue. Her eyes meet his, oddly searching.

"Does he know?" Finn asks. 

"No." 

"He would marry you. He trails you like a dog."  

It comes out more bitter than he'd meant it to, but her retort is twice as hard: 

"And you're one to talk about dogs." 

This confuses Finn. He doesn't follow Lachesis wherever she goes. It must show on his face, because her smile is sharp and amused. 

She says, "I don't want to marry, anyway." 

"People will talk." 

"They've said worse."

He remembers the far-off look in her eyes from the ramparts when they spoke of gods. 

"I prayed," she confesses, voice suddenly high, uncharacteristically fragile. "I prayed this wouldn't happen. Nobody listened." 

Finn's hand lands on her shoulder and she eyes it with disdain, because they both know it should have been an embrace. But the awkward pat is what he manages. Lachesis looks up at him one more time, waiting, but there is no answer in his eyes.

***

She's showing when the ice recedes and Lord Quan makes preparations to return to Manster. 

Lady Ethlyn takes Finn's place as the comfort Lachesis was looking for: no judgment, no flickers of envy; just answers when she has questions and promises that everything will be fine. Sometimes Finn accompanies her on her visits to the sparse rooms that house the former princess, for Lachesis is still his friend. Lachesis says she radiates heat, which makes the winter more bearable, and Finn does often see her walking in fewer layers than the rest of them. She was ill for a month -- not just mornings, but constantly -- but that went away quite suddenly. Beowulf knows everything now, but Lachesis was serious about not wanting to marry. 

She's returning to her former beauty as she comes to terms with her grief. She has more to think about now than her dead brother and the dream he had. Each night in bed, after his prayers, Finn thinks of her eyelashes and her natural pout and the one, long moment her hips had borne down on his. He tells himself not to, but it happens anyway. 

He has every faith in her, he says when he tells her goodbye. She's one of the strongest people he knows. Soon she'll have a healthy child, and Lord Sigurd will surely be acquitted of all the horrible slander against him, and Lachesis can help him carve a path back home. Good will prevail.

"I'll write you," he offers, but the word  _ often _ is cut off when she pulls him down by the mantle of his cloak and kisses him. Her fingers are iron and her lips are satin. The kiss is a light thing, hardly there, only a breath long, but before Finn realizes what he's doing she's in his arms and he's taking another. 

"I'm sorry," he blurts when he pulls away. "I just -- well -- goodbye." 

"Goodbye, Finn." 

And then he's on the road back to his own home.

***

The days in Leonster pass sweetly. 

Altena is delighted to be reunited with them. Soon Ethlyn is heavy with another child, and Finn's afternoon duties inevitably turn into playing chase in the corridor so that the crown princess can rest. King Calf and Queen Alfiona congratulate him on his promotion personally. When Leif is born, Finn is the first to hold him after Quan himself, and then they let Altena onto a chair by Ethlyn's bedside and help her do the same. On evenings off he can meet Glade for a drink, and it is nice to have his only friend back. 

(No, Finn realizes halfway through a stein. He has two friends, now.)

The newest gossip is that the late King Eldigan's widow is residing with her brother and his family in Manster District. Quan writes her at once to make sure there's nothing she and her son could want for. Finn goes to his own rooms -- awarded to him in the palace as befitting his station, and containing a real study -- and sits at his new desk to pen his own letter. 

Now Lachesis will know where to find Hezul's heir. He hopes it will comfort her. 

The trial in the desert is over. 

***

The last time he sees them, they kiss and embrace him in Leif's nursery. Altena hugs his knees and is still hiccupping from the worst fit of crying Finn had ever seen from her; as if she'd completely lost her mind. She is quiet now, as Ethlyn presses Leif into Finn's arms and picks her up in turn. 

"My lord," Finn tries to protest, though they've been over this a hundred times. He stares into Leif's curious brown eyes. "My place is at your side." 

"You serve the royal family," Quan retorts, "and I can think of no better place for you. No one else whom I would trust more." 

It is quite the duty. Quan's first son. His flesh and blood, even though Altena carries Nova's mark already. Hardly a weight in his arms: just malleable warmth and the softness of his fleece blanket. Finn blinks hard. 

Quan's eyes are tender when he finds the strength to raise his own. 

"I will pray for you," Finn manages. "Every minute." 

He almost wants to offer his diptych, but then -- what good is carrying Nova's blessed soil, when Quan already carries her blood? He will return victorious, as he always does. 

Finn can see the forces from the window as they ride away. Leif lies upon his shoulder and sleepily toys with a button on his coat.  

***

King Calf's scouts return late.

There is no trace of the Gae Bolg. The Yied is littered with corpses, though several bodies at the vanguard were devoured. The scouts brought back all that remained from the frontmost line: scraps of torn and bloodied leather; and a few hand and finger bones, still somewhat attached with muscle and tendon. Too small to be Lord Quan's, too large to be Princess Altena's. 

Finn lies in his cold bed that night, shutters firmly drawn against the moonlight, and remembers Ethlyn's hand against his brow the morning he survived his worst injury. Perhaps she was reaching out from a wyvern's jaws, and that's where the teeth severed her. Which meant Altena was out there on the sand to be reached for. Altena was small enough to be swallowed whole. 

Is it wrong, sick, to pray that she was chewed first, for a faster and more merciful end? 

He wants to retch. He's shaking as if with a terrible fever, and his pillow is soaked. He can't catch his breath. 

It takes all his effort to pull out his diptych and unfold it, trying his best to focus on the icon of Nova through the blackness and his swampy vision. Long nose, thick hair, dark eyes impossibly fierce and sweet and beautiful. Such eyes. 

_ I should have been with them. _ That much Finn knows in his core. He lies there and trembles and prays to die, over and over, prays that he will simply  _ cease _ , to be taken into the afterlife as his master's possession. 

But in the morning the sun rises as it always does. His muscles ache, his ears and nose and eyes are raw, his temples throb. He's tempted to just lie there until starvation or dehydration offs him. That's what he deserves, for not being there at the end. 

_ But Leif _ , he remembers vaguely, in a voice that's almost not his own.  _ You have duties still. Lord Leif will want to play today. _

He closes his diptych. Still dry-sobbing without control, watching himself from someplace closer to the ceiling, Finn pushes himself up. 


End file.
